We Aren't Enemies

I was debating politics with my step-father several years ago, when part of his argument rolled around to the fact that Barry Goldwater had opposed Medicare. This was meant to be an indictment to prove that Senator Goldwater was opposed to providing medical care for the elderly. The fact of the matter was that the senator from Arizona was in favor of another bill that he believed did the job in a better way.

Recently another relative asked me how families were supposed to afford health insurance if not by the passing of the healthcare bill now before congress. So I gave her a list of things that could be done without gutting and undermining our current system.

In an effort to win votes and support for their side, politicians and interest groups often paint their solution as the only solution to a problem. The corollary is that if you oppose their solution you are opposed to solving the problem. Don't let this hocus pocus fool you. Many, if not most, politicians and Americans want to address inequities in our society. They want to protect us from terrorists, and preserve our civil rights. They want to encourage prosperity for all and provide for a social safety net. The arguments, for the most part, revolve around the methods of resolving problems and ranking priorities. The demagoguery comes into play once a proposal is made by one side or the other and then both sides begin a game of deceit and gamesmanship in order to preserve power and prestige for their party or ideology.

We forget that we are all on the same side. Remember the mood of the country on September 12, 2001? You can argue about some of the decisions that came out of that mood, but we recognized that more important than whether we were Republicans or Democrats, labor or management. we were Americans & there were real enemies out there whose quarrel with us wasn't the methods of achieving our goals, but the goals themselves.

When somebody holds up a banner that says "Healthcare for All", we can all agree with that goal. Just don't get confused and begin to think that if we oppose the present legislation we don't want anything done. That is just a ploy to scare you into supporting something that you may not understand, or with which you may not agree. It is an effort to make you believe that those who oppose this bill are against quality healthcare for all Americans. Be assured, that isn't the case.

We Can't Afford Another Entitlement

Within days of his inauguration President Obama asked Congress to pass an economic stimulus bill. He said that it had to be done quickly and he wanted it to be bi-partisan, but left the details up to the Democrats in the House of Representatives. When Republicans offered to confer on what should be included in the bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "we won, we'll write it". The result was a bloated bill, filled with virtually everything on the Democratic wish list they have been wanting for years. Most of the spending in that bill would not take place until long after the immediate crisis was expected to end. Because of the perceived urgency in the economy, the bill was passed without most in congress reading it in its entirety.

In the midst of what has been called the worst economic crises since the Great Depression, The President asked that a cap and trade bill be passed by congress. The house has passed that bill which, if passed by the Senate, will reduce greenhouse emissions in the United States, and move those emissions to other countries who will get the jobs we will lose with less regard for the environment than what we have here in the United States. So global warming will not be helped & a weak economy in the USA will be weakened further.

Now the President wants us to pass a healthcare bill that will establish another entitlement in our system. We are facing the bankruptcy of both Social Security and Medicare, and he wants another, more pervasive and costly entitlement. He says it will help our economic predicament, as if his saying so will make it true. It will not.

Each of these bills deal with goals that most Americans can agree need to be addressed. But they can be done in a way that is reasonable rather than partisan. The healthcare bill before congress is something we can't afford. Remember when we didn't buy things we couldn't afford? This is one of those times. There are things we can do to improve the healthcare delivery system without creating a universal entitlement. Because the Democrats won large majorities in both houses and the Presidency does not mean they ought to rule as despots. They can try ruling as statesmen.

Do We Want Government In the Healthcare Business?

Where do people go to obtain cutting edge, state of the art healthcare? More than any other country, the answer is the United States. That healthcare is expensive. Not everybody can afford the most sophisticated care or the newest drugs. That makes some of the rest of us feel that we are being treated unfairly. But the medical care and medicine we get today was cutting edge & state of the art several years ago. Where would we be if those technologies & drugs had never been developed?

There will always be inequities in the world. Some of us will always have less and some of us will always have more. That isn't fair, but that is life. The trick is to address the needs of those who need help without inhibiting the system that develops the kind of medical treatment people come from around the world to get.

The biggest thing you can do to inhibit that innovation is to make the government an insurer. As Lord Acton said, "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Making government both the rule maker and the provider in the medical care arena, gives government all the power with little opportunity to check it. With government in the game as an insurer, private insurance will, over time, be crowded out of the market. That would leave you and me with only the government as our insurance company. When the government is in charge they will have a conflict of interest. On the one hand, they will be providing benefits for the country's healthcare, on the other hand, they will be responsible for all the costs. We are already doing this with Medicare, and Medicare underpays to the extent that many doctors will not take on any new Medicare patients. I heard one doctor recently say that his net profit on each Medicare patient is $4 per visit. that kind of profit will not permit the innovation that will cure cancer or diabetes.

There is much in the healthcare system that needs fixing. But the current bill before the House is not the only way to fix it. Don't let anybody convince you that it is their way or the highway. We can fix healthcare without a government option.